A Lesson and Tool
by Kyrieath
Summary: A one shot story about a young BE warlock and his plans for the future under his current 'tutor'. Yes, I'm still terrible at summaries.


Author note: This is a story about an RP character of mine, Teosareth. Currently he's on Moon Guard though I'm liable to retire him to purely NPC status as of Cataclysm. Warlocks and me just don't jive, evidently. The characters mentioned (Faede & Jugo'Thandris (Jugo) ) are played by my partner; Archelorian is technically my character but appears only in off-game form for stories and scenes.

* * *

Various vials and bottles bubble and simmer along the table before me; a collection of herbs reduced to little more than their most basic state. It would look oh so very arcane, I suppose, to the unknowing; those who had never sat before at an alchemist's table. They would wonder at the mysteries each strange vial contained- oh their disappointment to learn there was nothing but extract of such worthless things as peacebloom or the like.

Worthless as they are now at any rate; and worthless to me ultimately in what I wish to do. I pause and listen for a moment in my workings, a slate board turned gray from the many writings and erasing of my work over the past several months...Faede is not here right now. It wouldn't matter if she were, I suppose. She may know the tinkerer's science of engineering, but arcane and alchemical science was far beyond her grasp. She could look upon this board as closely as she wished and never comprehend a word of it.

She would never know just how useless it was proving to be.

I wipe away the latest equations, caring little to hide my disgust with their failure. Try as I might, I have not yet managed to recreate what I did in her; the pathetically mewling and writhing Wretched bound to the corner table is proof enough of that. Some time ago, another had been bound there, ravaged by their need and overindulgence in it. By a mixture of bloodthistle and more exotic ingredients brought from such far away places as Felwood and further yet to the ravaged world of Outland, I had brought that Wretched back to something resembling an elf.

If only on the surface, at least. Alchemy has created no cure for madness and I have little doubt that still holds her. She is savage, cruel and hateful; I suppose one might think she is simply the things we deny in ourselves personified. What of us hasn't engaged in some of that hate against the Scourge, the Alliance; our murderers and betrayers. Such a pity betrayal seems a continuing trend for our history, eh? Maybe we will all be like Faede before long; we'll stop even trying to pretend we give a damn about Azeroth or its people.

Maybe I already have; I call forth demons, don't I? The servants of the Legion in some cases; what else could one call an imp or succubus? The voidwalker...oh I know him for something else entirely. Those beasts serve no one but their one and only lord willingly. For a time we had even embraced such a thing, or its root, as a race. The fel had saved some of us from madness even as others of us became mad because of it, their bodies twisting and wasting to this disgusting beast dying on my table. Perhaps it is trying to speak as it wastes away before my eyes; it hardly matters. I stride away and return to my journal, noting the failure in the log and casting sand to dry the ink before it smears.

Maybe it's pointless to keep trying this; after all, weren't we all supposed to be falling on our knees in gratitude that the oh so noble Naaru and their puppets had seen fit to save us from ourselves by rekindling the Sunwell after some noble sacrifice or the like? I suppose then there will be no more Wretched, none newly 'born' at any rate. Perhaps even the Sunwell's restoration from some Light beast's corpse will undo what was done to these things and make them whole again.

Or perhaps into something else completely.

It sickens me, that power that courses from the Sunwell now. The Light is no less changing than the Fel or the Arcane. One had made us from Highborne into High Elves after centuries of exposure; the other had begun making Blood Elves into something other than socially re-named High Elves. We had seen the final stages of that, I suppose, in the Felbloods our 'dear' Prince had returned with to try to sell us completely to the Legion.

I find myself wondering if Fate just enjoyed one miserable joke after another at our expense on both personal and racial levels. It was certainly laughing at me, unable to reproduce the very thing that had earned me my current place in the standing of a far more powerful warlock's tutelage. He had been fascinated by Faede's condition; a restored Wretched for all I would be loathe to name her an 'elf' of any kind. Still, she had her uses in earning me what I had now...and continued to earn it for me as justification for my projects. He wanted to see what I could make of her though my use of alchemy and shadow magic; would I eventually produce in her a Felblood? Perhaps something along those lines yet different that he may put to use in whatever his grander plans were?

I certainly know I have hardly earned any trust to know his exact plans. I have yet to prove myself as anything more than a tool of convenience; a gifted amateur, much as it galls to admit. I know something about why his interest even fell to me beyond Faede; somewhere, Archelorian had a son that had displeased him. Greatly displeased him. His son and I were not so different in age, that much he had confided in me.

I was an example, he stated. Proof his son was not an irreplaceable creature by any means. Jugo'Thandris, son of Archelorian, had once been a source of pride and a tool in his own right until he had forgotten his place. I was a lesson that said place could easily be filled by other, more obedient personages.

That galled as much as admitting my own lack of knowledge in our shared craft; I have no intention of bowing and scraping to this warlock for the rest of my days and certainly not being cast aside because the brat decided to crawl home. For now, however, I would take a lesson from my own minions. I would watch, I would wait; I doubt he will ever trust me enough to let his guard down but his arrogance will surely get the better of him if he makes that brat son of his obey him and return to the fold.

I will let it grow; if the son is any where as arrogant the father, he will turn his mind to ensuring his place and belittle me. A dangerous thing for any to do to their potential adversary as they may grow to believe their own insults. I would let them both come to see me as nothing but a tool, obedient and leashed by fear, thus supposedly never to move against them.

Arrogance is always the downfall of our kind, I hear. A warlock may one day summon up something he cannot control or fail to realize his minions have become the masters when he paid too little mind to their workings. How many found themselves so enslaved to the Legion over the years, be it by their arrogance and greed or simple carelessness? How many had been so slain by underestimating the hatred of a voidwalker or felguard?

A wise warlock checks themselves and their minions; a wiser warlock watches his own fellows to see the canny and strong from the overly ambitious, the foolish, the reckless. He chooses his 'allies' with as much care as he does his minions. I will prove Archelorian has made a mistake in thinking to control me as he did his own son. I will simply be wiser than Jugo'Thandris and bide my time, obedient and waiting until my power has neared its peak. Then, I will finally come into my own and be rid of all of these annoying games and necessities.

"I love it when you start plotting." That little velvet purr comes with the steady clack of hooves across stone as Lynone, my succubus, wanders over. Easy enough to tell how she could read the line of my thoughts; the pen hasn't moved for some time over those pages. I've only been staring at them...a weakness I will need to amend some day soon. It would be best if it were not so easy to tell when I was occupied by some thought. "You look so intense and delightful, thinking about becoming the master. It's such a delectable idea, isn't it..? Owning what thinks to own you..."

I answer with only a glare for her half threat, half taunt...I know full well what she thinks of my intentions. She has certainly done her level best to be an 'innocent' thorn in my side, targeting Faede for most of her taunts and games. So long as I can produce the drug that keeps Faede from descending into becoming a Wretched once more, however...Lynone's own plots are little more than an annoyance.

And then only to Faede. I suppose if I were possessed of a more lowly sense of humor to match my background, I'd find their 'cat fights' amusing. Instead, they're just another trial to endure as Lynone tries in vain to isolate me from the rogue. Faede will never find her 'cure' anywhere else; of that I remain sure.

"Oooh fine, ignore me." My chair creaks as she leans more heavily on the back, fingers twining into the tail of my topknot lazily. "You certainly enjoyed it the last time you paid attention to me, Teosareth.."

"Away to the Nether with you, wretch!" The succubus reels back at that dismissal, a quick, stinging pain informing me that some strands of my hair are most likely going with her as well as she fades from sight, sulking. A small enough price to pay for some quiet. Yes, my skills were still a far ways from even nearing the level of my new master's; that would change one day.

Until then, I had other things to set myself to. More of Faede's 'medicine' needed to be made; and there was still the ever unanswered question of why it had worked on her but not on all of these others I have given it to. Something on her side, I suppose...each death resulting from exposure to this drug has been different. The latest one is now nothing but shriveled flesh over crumbling bone on the table now, silent at last. The one before had burst into flames and before that...well.... Suffice to say the lab had been closed for cleaning and all its contents discarded as contaminated by the...fall out.

I would have to convince Faede to submit to another examination; it matters little enough that there supposedly should be no more Wretched. There are plenty still to be worked with, toyed with to see what can be made of them. The Felbloods had certainly been fascinating to behold but I rather lack the means to simply throw one of these Wretched before a sufficiently powerful demon and siphon their strength into them.

No matter; I would find the answer eventually and craft something other than some weak imitation, just as I would one day be my own master in all ways rather than the tool of someone greater.

As always, all it would take was time and effort.

~fin~


End file.
